


Cheers to the wish you were here, but you're not

by Tabata



Series: Leoverse [10]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22740007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabata/pseuds/Tabata
Summary: Adam should be used to the way it works between Blaine and Leo, but the fact is he can't stand it and he can't see how Leo can stand it either.
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Original Male Character(s)
Series: Leoverse [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/30541
Kudos: 1





	Cheers to the wish you were here, but you're not

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING:** This story is a **spin-off** for Broken Heart Syndrome. This means that it depicts things happening way late in the 'verse, and that may be on varying degrees of spoiler.
> 
> Written for this week's COW-T #10 Mission #3 on prompt "Viceversa" by Francesco Gabbani.

One of the reasons why Adam doesn't feel the need to move out of Lima like a lot of other kids do is that here you can still see the stars at night. Big cities are great, but there's so much light even after the Sun has set that you can't see nothing but the barren, black slate of the sky. He went to New York once, following Leo in one of his crazy quests for a super rare action figure, and he remembers how sad it felt – how deeply disconsolate – to look up and see nothing.

As a little kid, he used to talk directly to the stars every time he wanted to tell his father something that had happened to him. His photos scattered around the house didn't feel real somehow, while the sky was a physical place, the place everybody told him his father had gone to. It seemed logical to a practical mind like Adam's to talk looking up instead of holding a frame with a piece of paper in it. Maybe that's why he can't bear the idea of living in a place where he can't see the stars.

Besides, big cities never sleep, they never stop. Their constant bustling, the neverending coming and going of people, the car horns, the shouting would be too much to handle for someone like him. He's not a people person, he doesn't like noise. Being out in the world is not a hard thing for him to do – he's got no social anxiety issues or anything like that – but dealing with people drains him and he has to recharge at the end of the day. Sometimes he likes to paint, sometimes he goes for a run, sometimes he only needs to look at the stars for a while. And tonight they look close enough to touch. 

“You know that a party is supposed to be enjoyed by being _in_ it, right?”

Being Leo's best friend means moments of peace never last too long. “I needed a breath of fresh air.”

“And you came to the roof?”

Adam watches Leo as he comes out of the dormer window and steps carefully on the shingles, ready to catch him if he falls. Leo has never been that much coordinated, he's even less so when he's tipsy. “Both the veranda and the fire escape were full of people smooching. At least nobody went for dangerous outdoor sex twenty feet above ground tonight.”

Leo sits down next to him. “Fair enough. You could have texted me, though. I was looking for you.”

“To annoy me with what?”

Leo pouts and hits him with his shoulder. “Meanie. I wanted to bring you the last beer,” he informs him, handing him one of the bottles he's carrying.

“It's because you know I have a bottle opener attached to my key holder, isn't it?”

Leo chuckles, biting at his lower lip in that naughty way he does it whenever he caused troubles he knows he won't be really scolded for. “That might be one of the reasons, yes, but these truly are the last two beers in the house. I found them hidden in the back of the fridge behind a bag of broccoli.”

“What happened to the keg I saw when we arrived?” Adam asks as he uncaps both his and Leo's bottle.

“Gone around midnight,” Leo takes a sip, wincing a bit a the sour taste. He always makes that face at anything that is not immediately sweet on his tongue. “Someone went to get another one, like, an hour ago but they were so stoned they're probably sleeping in the park right now.”

“You're not taking the car, tonight.” 

Leo lies down, resting his head on his folded arm. “You're drinking too.”

“Then we're walking back home,” Adam insists. “Your eyes are lucid and you chuckle when it's not needed. How much did you have to drink?”

As a matter of fact, Leo chuckles again. “Just enough to survive the party. That's the single most boring frat party I've ever been to since we started college,” he comments.

“Why, because only three people hit on you as soon as you set foot inside the house instead of the usual ten?”

“That too. I mean, what's wrong with you, people? Haven't you seen me?”

They both laugh this time. “Is this why you're not down there hunting right now?” Adam asks softly.

Leo is that kind of friend who begs you to come with him at a party and then leaves you there the moment he sees someone he can hit on. Leo usually does that ten to fifteen minutes after they arrive anywhere, either because he locks eyes with a guy on the other side of the room or because a girl comes and literally takes him away. It's that easy for him to find someone to spend the night with – that's mostly because he's got no standards, really. You just need to be good-looking. Sometimes he even forgets that you came at the party with his car and you're supposed to go back together. Adam lost count of the times he had to search for him and found him making out – or worse – with someone in a closet just because he wanted to go home and sleep.

“I can't,” Leo says, passing his fingers through his tangled curls. A few hours in a hot or dump place and they become a mess. “Blaine's coming tomorrow.”

“Hm,” Adam takes a sip of his beer to avoid saying the first thing that came to his mouth at the mention of the man's name. He should be used to the way it works between them right now – Blaine stays away for weeks, Leo lives his life, then Blaine comes back and Leo drops everything he's doing to be at his back and call – but the fact is he can't stand it and he can't see how Leo can stand it either when he's the most clingy person he knows. He constantly needs attention and yet he's willing to be ignored for weeks if it's Blaine doing it. “And how do you know that?”

“He texted me two hours ago, saying he landed at Dayton,” Leo puts down the half-empty bottle on the windowsill and retrieves his phone from the back pocket of his black jeans. He opens the chat, probably to look at it again, and Adam sees there are no messages after Leo's excited one in response. 

“That's new.”

“Don't be like that, he writes sometimes.” Leo holds his knees, sighing. “Anyway, he'll be here for breakfast, I think.”

“How long is he staying this time?”

Leo shrugs. “He didn't say.”

The man never says it, so he can leave whenever he wants and blame Leo for having thought he would stay longer. If he thinks about what happened a few months ago, at the face Leo made when Blaine casually told them over dinner he wasn't even gonna stay one night, Adam still wants to punch someone in the face, possibly Blaine. Leo was not expecting that at all. It was Friday, he thought Blaine was going to spend the weekend with him after being away for weeks. The rest of the dinner was extremely uncomfortable between Leo that was trying not to cry and Adam that was trying not kill the man. The days after were hell.

“Why are you doing this to yourself?” They've known each other for so long at this point that they don't have deep heart-to-heart moments anymore. They have serious discussions the same way they have silly ones, casually.

“Please, Adam, not now,” Leo smiles at him, alcohol making him a little more mellow. “I'm having a nice night.”

“I'm not judging—“

“You are judging,” Leo chuckles again.

“Alright, I'm judging a little, but I'm mostly wondering,” Adam admits. “What's up with this man? Why do you still like him so much? You don't like older people. You don't like uptight moneybags who hang out in classy restaurants and go to the opera. You're a freaking McDonald's guy. As a matter of fact, half the time you don't even like men! I can't understand why are you so fixated on him when you could have literally anyone else!”

Leo takes a long, shaking breath and rests his head against Adam's shoulder. “I know you don't get it,” he says. “But he gets me. He makes me feel good when I feel really bad and I think I do the same for him. There's really nothing else, you know? It's that easy.”

“Still, you're always devastated when he's gone.”

“Yes, but that's the point, isn't it?” Leo looks up at him and he smiles, but Adam doesn't like that smile because it is a little sad. “He's the only one who can always make it right. There's no one else in the whole world that can do that.”

I could, Adam thinks. Let me try.

But he doesn't say it.


End file.
